


Fall From Grace

by xxwrote_my_way_outxx



Category: Natasha Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812 - Malloy
Genre: Angst, CW: Internalized Homophobia, Gay, It's A Complicated Russian Romance, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-30
Updated: 2017-07-30
Packaged: 2018-12-08 18:15:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11652003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xxwrote_my_way_outxx/pseuds/xxwrote_my_way_outxx
Summary: Vodka was the taste that Dolokhov yearned for most, because vodka was the only thing that he tasted when him and Anatole made love. However, vodka could never cure the pain that his heart battled when Anatole declared his love for this Natasha. He hated her. He hadn’t even met the woman be he could hardly even fathom the thought of her yet he still helped his guilty pleasure ensnare her and abduct her away.But what hurt him the most was the way that Anatole fell from the grace of God.And fell.And fell.And fell.





	Fall From Grace

Vodka was the taste that Dolokhov yearned for most, because vodka was the only thing that he tasted when him and Anatole made love.

The only times that Anatole would want him or Dolokhov would find it sensible to sleep with a _man_ of all people was when they were both drowning their sorrows in alcohol and each other. Fervent touches that were implied to be for someone else but were always for each other were etched into his mind like the love letters that he scribed for a Natasha Rostova that he wrote with words only meant for Anatole. Words that Dolokhov would be never dare even whisper to the blonde ditz if they were in public, and his pride wouldn’t take it if he muttered them in the dark of his bedroom after they had spent their lust on one another.

The only way to cope was to publicly have his sister instead of what he craved the most, which was him. His sister was just as an enchantress as he was, and she was incredibly charming and luscious in any way that the burly, short man could imagine. He knew that when he threw her into his bed of furs that he should be gracious to be bedding a stark, beautiful woman such as the mistress, but all he could think of was the way that Anatole felt when they were both influenced by several glasses of vodka and closeted love.

However, vodka could never cure the pain that his heart battled when Anatole declared his love for this Natasha. He hated her. He hadn’t even met the woman be he could hardly even fathom the thought of her yet he still helped his guilty pleasure ensnare her and abduct her away.

But what hurt him the most was the way that Anatole fell from the grace of God.

And fell.

And fell.

And fell.

Until he crashed and burned, and his feathers turned to ashes, leaving him in a ruin, a shell of the man that he once was. His heart couldn’t flutter and he couldn’t fly away, having to ride his way to Petersburg on the penny of his friend. Part of Dolokhov felt as if he was dealt the hand that he deserved to be casted in life for not thinking, for not caring, for not considering others. For not considering _him._ But no matter what Anatole did to him or what Dolokhov believed Anatole did to him, the man could never cast away his open arms and endless comfort to the disheveled heap. The blonde tempest tumulted through his life mercilessly, stripping him of any personal dignity. The question of whether or not he would join the broken man to his plunder in Petersburg, his natural response was: absolutely.

The ride in the troika was pungent with tension, the frigid air chilling both of them in cruel way. The fair-haired man had nestled himself beneath Dolokhov’s thick arm, and the bearded man couldn’t help but allow the weakling to indulge, allowing the sorrowed man to bask in his warmth and steal his heart with each passing moment.

“If all I offer is trouble, why are you still here?”

A question that Dolokhov was not prepared to answer was presented and his mouth went drier than the cold winter air. Instead of dignifying the question with an appropriate response, the brash man simply moved a gloved hand the gently play with the other’s silky, stale locks and noticed that Anatole was looking at him with a sort of worn-out look, though there was a form of desperation in his eyes beneath the surface, craving an answer almost as much as Dolokhov craved to cave and oblige him.

And when the arrived to the house, the silence from the troika was still prevalent throughout the first few months.

 

\--

The situation changed when Anatole would start to wander into Dolokhov’s room at the dead of night, his breathing ragged and torn. He was suffering a plague of nightmares that he would later admit that he had been having since the destruction of his elopement. Fingers would find their way beneath the brunette’s shirt, slightly undoing the buttons that were on his nightwear, arms coiled tightly around his fragile edges and hot breath weaving through his hair like wind did leaves. The sobs that seemed to rip through his friend’s body throughout the night began to tear the seams that were binding Dolokhov’s brute, cold heart. A heart that he had closed when he had heard of the elopement. How dare Kuragin wallow in his grief after leaving him to drown in his emptiness throughout the days? Part of him believed that the boy had forfeited any rights to beg him to make the pain go away, though the less sensible half wanted nothing more than to soothe his cries of loss, for he wished that he could have had that for himself when Anatole unwittingly betrayed him.

And one day, he stumbled.

The night he did was a night of passion, one he knew would cause him to tumble down the same path that Anatole had. Clothes were forgotten in place of memories of heat, of desperate, frantic fingers trying to cloak every part of bare, vulnerable skin. They were vulnerable to the cold world that hurt both of them, and vulnerable to the way that they hurt each other, leeched off of one another, drank in the affection and the unbridled love that they shared. The sobriety made it worse, the fall hurting worse. Dolokhov could feel himself dropping as him and Anatole found a place of ecstasy once more. An ecstasy that was sickening and disgusting in the eyes of God, Dolokhov could feel himself crumbling as Anatole pleaded with him as if he was one, begging him, bathing him, saying sweet nothings that could convince him he was a prophet. All thoughts of the elopement were forgotten in the heat, the pants, the creaking of the bed frames which were as stable as their relationship. As they both released, they pleaded to the God they had descended from to continue their sin, to let them bathe in the fruits of their turmoil and pure pleasure.

He couldn’t taste the alcohol. He could only taste _Anatole._

He was _so_ much better than vodka or prayers.

And for once, Dolokhov pulled on Anatole. He pulled him close. Flush. He cooed his own song of endless apologies, oversaturating him with his emotion. He recounted the tale of how he felt. He wept and grieved into his hair.  All he could do was apologize. Apologizing because he was _in love_ with him. He was _falling, and falling, and falling, and falling…_

“Why do you apologize?”

Why was Dolokhov apologizing?

“God would not want this for me. For you. For any man alive.”

“Do not speak of him. He has betrayed me enough. I have fallen from him and have fallen for you. Will God’s graces make you _feel_ the way that this does? Will it make you quiver with passion and heal the aches and soothe the qualms in your heart? Will it stop the wars the plague the land and cloud your mind? God has made you as you are. You have fought enough. Stop fighting yourself. Now please, lie down and relax. You’re warm, and I am cold. I don’t wish to catch a fever.”

And Dolokhov fell. His arm collapsed against the man’s side and his hands pulled him closer than he could have imagined. The way that Anatole shifted against him like a perfect puzzle piece made him feel whole. Whole was not a feeling that Dolokhov had ever felt, and no matter what God would have promised him, or the valor he was promised from war, or the dignity in indulging in the marriage of a woman did not make him feel as complete or as completely broken as Anatole had made him.

What rose from the dust and hot ambers of Anatole’s lost wings singed the edges of his being and melted his fears, burning his scent and his being into his skin and brandishing him for as long as the coals that burned kept him on his earth, his own fall decorating the world with debris and ashes, polluting it with his true being. His freedom.


End file.
